Page 93 - moby-dick

was by no means disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul.
Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the
traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes,
fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that
would dare a thousand devils. And besides all this, there
was a certain lofty bearing about the Pagan, which even his
uncouthness could not altogether maim. He looked like a
man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor.
Whether it was, too, that his head being shaved, his forehead
was drawn out in freer and brighter relief, and looked more
expansive than it otherwise would, this I will not venture
to decide; but certain it was his head was phrenologically
an excellent one. It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded
me of General Washington’s head, as seen in the popular
busts of him. It had the same long regularly graded retreat-
ing slope from above the brows, which were likewise very
projecting, like two long promontories thickly wooded on
top. Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically
developed.
Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending
meanwhile to be looking out at the storm from the casement,
he never heeded my presence, never troubled himself with
so much as a single glance; but appeared wholly occupied
with counting the pages of the marvellous book. Consider-
ing how sociably we had been sleeping together the night
previous, and especially considering the affectionate arm I
had found thrown over me upon waking in the morning,
I thought this indifference of his very strange. But savages
are strange beings; at times you do not know exactly how

Moby Dick